USAID (all employees furloughed) / Feb. 4 news UNRWA : Palestinian aid cut off to that part of United Nations from USA

1,600 jobs in the U.S. are eliminated

see further http://www.reuters.com/

Announced Feb. 23, 2025

Come Monday 2/24

all U.S. A. I. D. employees are told they are

no longer employed -- uniform lay-off is

in effect from POTUS Trump and Elon Musk. . .

AP News (7:30 p.m. Feb. 4, 2025)

POTUS Trump announced Tuesday 4 Feb. that he

will withdraw aid from UNRWA that provides aid, health

care, schooling, assistance to Palestinians who fled or

were expelled from their homes before and during the

1948 Arab-Israeli war that established the state of Israel,

as well as for their descendants.  Some 2.5 million

refugees in Gaza, W. Bank, E. Jerusalem and 3 million

more in Jordan & Lebanon.

DETAILS of that Executive order move taken the

same day as the visit of P.M. Netanyahu of Israel

to visit the Trump - Vance administration in D.C.

apnews.com/article/trump-un-human-rights-palestinian

refugees-israel

Trump also called for a review of UNESCO and the

level of support paid by the U.S. for the U.N. budget

Social Isolation (observances about United States overall)

from NY TIMES article 4 Feb. 2025

American well-being compared

across 37 rankings compared to

other industrialized nations & China

on economic performance, physical

health, mental health, social trust . . .

we have the LOWEST life expectancy

highest murder rate,

world's highest rate of drug overdoses,

lowest rates of trust in government,

among highest rates depression in youth,

high rate of single-parent families. . .

Americans spend less time in group

activities (e.g. sports leagues, labor

union meetings, church activities). . .

progress has slowed for millions of

Americans even as they hear that the

economy is stronger than it has ever

been.  We're prone to overconsume

and make ourselves sick. . .

Conclusion of the DE CIVITATE DEI

The end of all ends:

ibi vacabimus et videbimus

videbimus et amabimus,

amabimus et laudabimus.

There we shall be at rest,

and see,

we shall see and love,

we shall love and praise!

BOOK 22, #30

Natural phenomena that Augustine adduces on Death & Afterlife (Book 20)

from Gerard O'Daly's AUGUSTINE's THE CITY OF GOD

A Reader's Guide (2020, Oxford Univ. Press, 2nd edition)

Chapter 10, pages 250-1 : on Book 20

Augustine at this point in De Civitate Dei

adduces the example of natural phenomena

to support his argument that things can 

survive fire, and bodies may be immune

to decay: the salamander, volcanoes, the

flesh of the peacock. . .Fire itself is some-

thing full of contradictory powers.  It both

destroys and preserves, it burns most

things black but some white (e.g. stones).

It can be stored in lime, and then activated

by the addition of water, which normally 

extinguishes fire, but it is not activated

by oil, which is normally a fuel for fire.

The Judgment of God -- De Civitate Dei BOOK 20

from Gerard O'Daly's THE CITY OF GOD

A READER'S EDITION (2020: 2nd edtion)

chapter 10 pages 242 - 244

In Book 20 Augustine is chiefly concerned to

demonstrate that this judgment of God will take

place, and to show of what kind it is, on the 

basis of Scriptural testimonies.  He relies on

testimonia divina [Latin for evidence of

Scripture] in his assumption that it will happen

or rather that it happens continually in human

history, starting with the expulsion of Adam &

Eve from Paradise.  Before that event, God 

judged the angels who rebelled.  Moreover, present

punishments -- of demons -- are instances of

divine judgment [Book 20 #1].  Concerning the FINAL

judgment he deals first with NEW Testament then

OLD Testament materials, preferring value (LATIN

merita) to chronology (LATIN tempora ). . ."things

new and old" (Parable in Matthew 13:52). . .Some

passages refer to the first resurrection / the soul's

liberation, through baptism, from the death-like

state of sin. . .The final judgment will be the second

one, and will lead, for some, to the second death

of eternal damnation (Book 20 #6) . . .In 20.7

A. demonstrates that what Revelation 20 says about

the Devil is consistent with what he says about the

two meanings of the Millennium / 1,000 years. . .

the binding of the devil symbolizes the belief that,

although the devil may tempt, he cannot undermine

the church.  His release, Revelation 20:3, does not

entail that the devil can then do serious damage,

but is rather intended by God to demonstrate the

power of the defeated enemy.  The 42-month release

(Revelation 11:2 & 13:5) is underscored in a 

literal sense, but A. does not propose that there

will be any great difference in the pattern of those

falling away from, or joining, the Church in that

period (Book 20 #8). . . The present state of the

Church is that of a kingdom at war, with evil and

with its enemies; but the final state of the kingdom

of God will be one of peace.

Metropolitan AME Church, D.C.

The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church

Washington, D.C. won the ruling from Judge Tanya

M. Jones Bosier of the Superior Court of the District

of Columbia that the "PROUD BOYS" name

trademark, merchandise with it symbols

was stripped from the white nationalist group

of insurrectionists and violent domestic terrorists

and will instead benefit the historic black church /

congregation.  Today Monday Feb. 3, 2025

all funds raised now must be given to the D.C.

congregation where they tried to burn and attack it.

nytimes.com/2025/02/03/us/politics/proud-boys.html

De Civitate Dei, Book 19 (most studied portion)

Chapter 10 in Gerard O'Daly (Oxf. Univ. Press

2020, 2nd edition) Augustine's The City of God:

A Reader's Edition.

The beginning of Book 19 marks the transition

from authority to reason:

Augustine will proffer a critical survey

of philosophical opinions about the nature

of human happiness and the final good.

His survey of human ills sequences 

individual-household-city / or state -

world - angelic society. . . For A.,

the world (Latin orbis terrae ) is first

the Roman empire and second the rest of

the world cut off from Roman rule.  For

among the world's evils he reckons civil

wars. . .and wars between emperors and

usurpers.

Wars may be just, a necessity

imposed by the injustice of others;

but they are none the less 

terrible!  

The word peace (Latin pax) [Book

19 #10] . . . is the final good

for the Christian inasmuch as it

is the condition, in its perfect

form, of eternal life.  

The name JERUSALEM means

'vision of peace'.  A. provides

a classified and hierarchical series

of definitions of kinds of peace

BODY, irrational and rational SOUL,

the BODY-SOUL conjoint, peace

between humans and God and among

humans themselves, domestic peace,

the peace of the city of God, the 

peace of all things as a

'tranquility of order.'